‘I have a bomb on one of your planes’: US passenger jets grounded after chilling Twitter threats

A pair of F-16 fighter jets has escorted two US commercial airliners to their landing in Atlanta following a chilling bomb threat online.

Twitter user @kingZortic sent unsettling messages to Delta and Southwest airlines suggesting he had smuggled explosives onto flights and threatened to detonate them.

The threats prompted the jets to be scrambled for the planes arriving from Portland and Milwaukee, said Preston Schlachter from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Mr Schlachter described the escort as a "precautionary measure," and said the planes landed safely.

Two flights were grounded at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta before the FBI and specialist officers raided the planes. 

Passengers were escorted from the jets to be screened and interviewed.

The unapologetic Twitter user laughed off the incident, suggesting he had pranked the airlines as a joke.

"Zortic" also dared the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency to find him, as other Twitter users roundly criticised the messages.

With AFP.